


Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

by MooseLane



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Radio, Wasteland lore, numbers stations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5428061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseLane/pseuds/MooseLane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mini fic about Numbers Stations continuing to broadcast over post-apocalyptic airwaves, and who might be out there listening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

_¡Atención!_

_74279_  
93532  
_12736_  
_90921_

Max's hand pauses on the dial and he listens. 

 _45364_  
_65573_  
_24713_  
_58213_

The transmission continues for several minutes. A neutral tone, a woman's unwavering voice.

 _14857_  
_95724_  
_52759_  
_96729_

_Final. Final._

He listens to the silence that follows, a crackle of static that fills the desert voids. He breathes in the quiet for a moment, the stillness, before the voices of the dead weave back through the white noise. He turns the dial.

 

—

 

It makes good wasteland banter amongst traders. The weather, the gearbox, the radio voices.

"They're numbers, you know," the old woman insists as she arranges her wares.

"Ain't no numbers I ever heard," the trader remarks. "And even if they are, what’re they supposed to mean?"

"Ah, now that I could not tell you," she smiles sweetly. "Nor where they come from, nor who they are for."

"The old mystery," the trader chuckles. A young girl joins the woman and peers at him with accusing green eyes. "Who is this little one then?"

"I'm not little," the child insists. 

"Not for long," the old woman agrees, patting the girl’s head. "Come child, let me show you how the Vuvulini do trade." 

 

—

 

The invisible words are prayers from the ether, spoken in the language of the gods. 

_Uno Dos Seis Cinco Nueve_

They name their children in the ten holy words.

_Cuatro Cero Cero Tres Siete_

They await the benedictions on the appointed hour, and chant the day’s words back to the heavens. 

_Ocho Nueve Tres Dos Cinco_

The holy names manifest in their dreams. A figure in black casts fingers across the desert, _Ocho_ on its lips. _Cero_ rattles the bones as impossible water falls from the sky. _Nueve_  lies a lover's kiss, long forgotten. The prophet listens to the dreams in the soft morning light. They draw the holy names in the sand, make maps of the prayers. 

_Dos Cero Tres Cuatro Siete_

They cross the deserts and back, and follow the way of the words of the gods.

 

—

 

She still listens sometimes, while the girls work on a lesson, or lie in their beds. They ask about it, what the words are, what they mean. The sound must be loud in her headset, to echo across the Vault. Her hearing is not what it used to be.

She lost her one-time pad years ago, stolen from a safe house by raiders, along with her stash of CR1Ms and her pistol. Everything is gone now. She sometimes smiles at the thought of the cipher papers in the hands of an inventive wastelander, rolled with radioactive herbs and smoked into oblivion.

Whether the pad was destroyed is no longer a concern. The numbers on the airwaves are not for her, have not been for a very long time. 

She turns her focus to the present and does what she was trained to do. She makes the best of her situation. She makes allies out of her fellow captives. And when the time comes, she sacrifices herself for the coming of the revolution.

 

_Final. Final._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Numbers stations are a real thing, and are very strange and mysterious in real life. 99% Invisible had a great piece about them that you can check out here: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/numbers-stations/
> 
> Also, if you're wondering what exactly a one-time pad is: http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/otp/index.htm
> 
> I'm imagining Cuba is the only one who survived the oil wars, water wars, and nuclear apocalypse intact. At least, the only one in the spy game. Icelanders might still be out there, enjoying their skyr yogurt, fermented shark, and geothermal energy.


End file.
